“A-ha moments.”
We’ve all had them, right? You’re trying to figure out the answer to some problem, usually a difficult one, and the answer will suddenly come to you in a flash of insight. I’ve had my share of those types of “difficult” solutions, usually in the context of trying to figure out a particularly brain-draining piece of code. Many times the answers came to me in dreams; which I’ve learned, from talking with other programmers, is a fairly common occurrence. There’s even a website out there named Dream In Code that I visit fairly regularly when looking for answers to problems that I’m having.
I also have very different, incredibly stupid, “a-ha moments.” What I mean is that I am prone to suddenly realize things that should be completely obvious to a person who has paid any attention to life. These are the moments in my life that make me want to come up with a new word, somewhat like “bittersweet,” but not quite. It would be a word that expresses incredible relief and excitement while at the same time evoking the spirit of “Dammit! Why didn’t anybody tell me this?”
The most amazing moment of this type that I’ve experienced is probably one that I’ve told to a lot of you who are privy to this blog. It occurred at the end of my junior year in high school. It was when I learned what a valedictorian is. It was when I learned, for the first time, that that “permanent record” that everyone was always talking about was an actual thing. Prior to that moment, when my friend Mark suggested that he and I go to the school’s career counselor and find out what our class ranking was, I had absolutely no idea that I was actually being ranked against my classmates. I was familiar with the concept of Grade Point Average, but I’d never dreamed that it was a cumulative thing and that people actually kept track of it.
Prior to that moment, I carried about a C- average in high school. After I learned about it, I pretty much blew the minds of everyone who’d ever known me by blasting through my senior year with about a 4.5 GPA – the highest of any senior in the class. All because of an “a-ha moment” that I probably never should have had.
I majored in sociology because of another fantastically stupid oversight on my part. I’d wanted to major in anthropology – preferably physical anthropology (the cool kind where you get to dig up skeletons and stuff), so I took every anthropology class there was. When it came time to declare my major, I matter-of-factly told my faculty advisor (who was also the guy teaching most of my anthropology courses) that I wanted my B.A. in anthropology.
He then matter-of-factly told ME that Furman didn’t have an anthropology major and that all of those classes that I’d taken fell under the sociology umbrella.
So I got a B.A. in sociology.
Well, today I had another mind-blowingly stupid “a-ha moment,” based mainly on a conversation that I overheard between Betsy Jones and one of her euphonium students last Friday. I’m not sure exactly what they were talking about, but at some point she mentioned that she didn’t like to teach “don’t puff out your cheeks” when you play, but preferred to teach “keep the corners of your mouth firm” (the end result being that your cheeks can’t really puff out).
In retrospect, I guess I must’ve known – on some level – that maintaining firm corners on my embouchure is important; but until this afternoon, when I was once again struggling with that insipid flutter-tone, I’d never thought about it or concentrated on it or really felt it.
And in 40 years of playing brass, nobody’s ever actually said to me, “Keep the corners firm.”
So while struggling today and getting more and more frustrated with my inability to consistently play a D without flutter, that remnant of a conversation between Betsy and her student inexplicably swooped through my head, and I concentrated on the corners of my mouth.
And, voila! The flutter went away.
It went away on the D. It went away in the high range, the mid range, the low range. It went away regardless of whether I was slurring or tonguing. It went away at fortissimo and it went away at pianissimo.
It. Just. Freaking. Went. Away.
I noticed that when I stopped concentrating on the corners and started concentrating on the notes, it came back. And when I stopped concentrating on the notes and started concentrating on the corners it went away again.
I realized that my face looked exactly like the faces of other people who I’ve watched playing their horns, and I realized that my face had never looked like that when I was playing before.
And I noticed that, after about 20 minutes of really focusing on maintaining firm corners, the muscles around my jaw were aching. But I still wasn’t fluttering.
When I was growing up, I pretty much taught myself how to play, and I did it in a way that worked for me. I guess when I was younger, I had enough natural ….. what? Talent? Flexibility? Luck? …. to play pretty well without knowing the fundamentals. Over the last 10 years, I’ve figured out that that isn’t working for me anymore.
In a nutshell, I’ve got to learn a new way of playing…..but now I know what I’ve been doing wrong.
I’m hoping this is like my senior year in high school all over again. Time will tell.
Thank you, Betsy.
TWD
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